The Top 20 Players of the Open Era - Update

Serena Williams, #2

The end-2018 update, which also marks the completion of the first half century of open era tennis. Active players are in bold.

Compared to the last update - made after the 2018 Australian Open, when Roger Federer won his 20st grand slam title and took the #1 spot from Rod Laver - Rafael Nadal moves from #4 to #3, Novak Djokovic from #7 to #5.

Nadal's promotion is mostly due to equivalence: when Federer hat 17 titles, we ranked him above Ken Rosewall - but below Rod Laver - too. But cross-era comparisons are necessarily fishy, especially when they involve players who had a significant chunk of their career before the open era. One could also argue for Rosewall as #3 (or #2, or, in fact, #1) who, in the early 1960s, dominated the ProTour in ways Nadal did not.

More straightforward is the comparison between Djokovic and Sampras. While both hold the same number of slams (14), Djokovic has been in more finals and semifinals, and he also won all grand slam tournaments while Sampras never won the French Open. There are solid grounds to rank Djokovic above Borg - although in Borg's era, there were de facto only three slams.

The three active Dai-Yokozuna now occupy 3 of the first 5 places, documenting the uniqueness of this era. Among other active players, Yokozuna Andy Murray is #16, career-high Ozeki Stan Wawrinka #20.

In the ladies' ranking, Ozeki Angelique Kerber enters the top 20 after winning her third grand slam title. Gabriela Sabatini has to make way. Dai-Yokozuna Serena Williams remains one grand slam title away from taking the top spot from Margaret Court. Her sister Venus Williams occupies the #9 spot, fellow Yokozuna Maria Sharapova is #13.

The Top 20 of the Open Era

	Male Players	Highest Rank			Female Players	Highest Rank
1	Roger Federer	Dai-Y		1	Margaret Court	Dai-Y
2	Rod Laver	Dai-Y		2	Serena Williams	Dai-Y
3	Rafael Nadal	Dai-Y		3	Steffi Graf	Dai-Y
4	Ken Rosewall	Dai-Y		4	Chris Evert	Dai-Y
5	Novak Djokovic	Dai-Y		5	Martina Navratilova	Dai-Y
6	Pete Sampras	Dai-Y		6	Billie Jean King	Dai-Y
7	Bjorn Borg	Dai-Y		7	Monica Seles	Dai-Y
8	Ivan Lendl	Y		8	Evonne Goolagong	Y
9	Jimmy Connors	Y		9	Venus Williams	Y
10	Andre Agassi	Y		10	Justine Henin	Y
11	John McEnroe	Y		11	Martina Hingis	Y
12	Mats Wilander	Y		12	Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario	Y
13	Stefan Edberg	Y		13	Maria Sharapova	Y
14	Boris Becker	Y		14	Hana Mandlikova	Y
15	John Newcombe	Y		15	Kim Clijsters	Y
16	Andy Murray	Y		16	Lindsay Davenport	Y
17	Jim Courier	Y		17	Jennifer Capriati	Y
18	Guillermo Vilas	O		18	Ann Haydon-Jones	O
19	Arthur Ashe	O		19	Virginia Wade	O
20	Stan Wawrinka	O		20	Angelique Kerber	O

Ray Emerson, Maria Bueno not included as most of their successes were before the open era.

Updated: September 11, 2018